Razors in the roses: Venice art Biennale gets political

In the era of “fake news” and social media echo chambers, Venice’s Biennale art fair is challenging preconceived biases by suggesting other ways of contextualising modern society’s biggest issues. “What elevates art into something special is the fact that it resists closed mentalities,” the international exposition’s artistic director, American Ralph Rugoff, told AFP ahead of Saturday’s opening. The theme of the world’s most prestigious art gathering is “May You Live in Interesting Times”, an (apocryphal) ancient Chinese curse that Rugoff says uncannily captures the world today, as the news cycle spins from crisis to crisis. “At a moment when the digital dissemination of fake news and ‘alternative facts’ is corroding political discourse and trust… it is worth pausing whenever possible to reassess our terms of reference,” he said in his introduction to the 58th Biennale. For the 2019 edition, which runs until November 24, Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery in London, has invited